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“Legally?” Joelle asked.
Her new sister shrugged, her jacket catching one of the magical beams to make the green fabric and skull print look fluorescent. “Does it matter? And before your conscience can spin on unnecessary problems, the answer’s no.”
“Okay.” Joelle let the issue go. Now wasn’t the time to argue over demon ethics. She struggled to concentrate beyond the buzz of powers thrumming through the room between the demon hybrids, the wards, and the veil. “Here goes.” She tugged at the veil, wincing at the damage she might inflict instead of fear of being blinded. If her magic hadn’t done it so far, she didn’t know that anything could. A slip of fabric came loose, shimmering against the glow of her knuckles. She handed the piece to Alys and unwound the veil but found no new tears. “It looks exactly as it did when I first picked it up. I can’t see any ripped fabric or ragged threads.” What else could the relic do?
Alys took a pair of gloves from her jacket pocket, snapping them over her hands. “Let me get a sample from you and I’ll see if the veil will let me do the analysis.”
“Here.” Joelle offered her hand with her palm facing upward and turned her gaze away, waiting for the pain of slashed skin to come.
“What the hell?” the pain-bringer asked. “I’m not into the torture thing unless you ask nicely.” She took a long cotton swab out of a zipped plastic bag. “A cheek swipe will do. Open your mouth, rub the inside, and all done.”
Joelle did as instructed. “That’s it?”
“Yep. Dunk it in the bag.” Alys closed it with a clicking sound. “I’m off to get the comparison started before Tai gets here. I’ll let you know if the veil gives me any trouble.”
Alexei didn’t protest when Joelle sagged against him, still holding the veil. “My mate and I will be in the archives if you need us,” he said. “And Roman, go with my sister and make sure she doesn’t blind herself.”
“Of course.” The man followed Alys out of the room, leaving Joelle alone with her mate.
“The archives?” she asked. The hundreds if not thousands of bound volumes had enchanted her the last time she’d visited. “How’d you know I love that room?”
“Easy guess. But I had more reasons for suggesting a visit than just distracting you. I remember reading something about a scrap of a relic going missing from a museum, a veil that’d been rumored to have come from a celestial goddess. Like everyone else, I figured it must’ve been a hoax, but if I can find the article, we can pinpoint the date of the theft.”
She put the unspoken pieces together. “To know if Noxx might’ve sampled it to create me?” The atrocity sounded no less outrageous when said aloud than it had in her head.
“Something like that.” He cupped her cheek, trailing his fingers along her jaw. “Perhaps we can find articles related to the missing children as well.”
Hope had her moving. “Let’s do it.” Heading down the walkway, her cheeks heated as one guard after another stopped to welcome her. They all stared at her grip on Alexei’s hand as she pulled her prince along. Later, she could worry about political perceptions and proper etiquette. Right now, they had kids to save.
The archives—or the woo woo collection of weird as Alys and Nita called it—appeared exactly the same as the last time Joelle had been here.
For the next hour, she tagged articles that referenced the deaths of supernatural families with children. Each description tore at her heart—from a little witch girl who had been murdered fifteen years ago to the toddler shifter who’d been killed along with his parents only last summer. What if those children hadn’t died in their homes but had suffered Noxx’s cruelty? Had she been locked in the same facility as any of them without knowing?
“Look.” Alexei slid a heavy volume her way. “A veil rumored to have been given to a human by a celestial goddess went missing from a museum twenty-two years ago.”
Her stomach twisted, a swarm of anxiety buzzing through her worse than any hex. The timeline matched too closely to her age for her not to suspect the obvious. “Noxx took it?”
“Could’ve been. I tried searching for the museum on my phone, but it closed a few weeks after the alleged theft of the veil. The gossip pages seemed to suggest that the break-in led to the museum shutting down.”
She leaned for a closer look, narrowing her eyes when she spotted which paper he’d clipped the article from. “The Transcendental Tattler? You can’t standThe Hex Report, but you collected this?”
“This little paper served the supernatural community in a New England small town for over a hundred years. That online trash site won’t even publish the author’s name.” He flipped the page. “Here’s their photograph of the stolen veil. It’s fuzzy, but it’d definitely—”
“It’s the same.” What’d it mean if she’d been created from a relic? “If I’m a clone of a goddess’s…holy object or even her essence if we’re being generous, then what am I?” She couldn’t meet his gaze. While she could take the judgment of so many, the torture that Noxx had doled out, knowing that she might bedifferentfrom others, she would break if he rejected her now that they’d discovered the truth.
He took her chin between his thumb and fingers, coaxing her to look at him. “You’re my mate. Nothing about you will change that. We’re destined for each other in this life and beyond. Don’t ever doubt the magnificent woman you are. I certainly don’t.”
The faith he had in her? It shook her to her core, upended her uncertainty. “I…” She didn’t know what to say. “With what those children have suffered, I shouldn’t be feeling sorry for myself.”
“It’s not a competition of misery. You endured your years with Noxx. Did anything in those articles you tabbed have information that would lead us to where the Order might be holding them?”
“No, I tried to find something,anythingthat might connect them, but I didn’t.” Tears burned her eyes, hot and messy and threatening to spill any second. She blinked to clear them. “I can’t stand to think…”Gods, she hated crying.
“I promised we would find them, rescue them, and I keep my promises.” His deep words rumbled through her, a soothing comfort. “You know this, yes?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“It’s only a matter of time before Nita tracks the Order,” he said. “Then I will rally the other kingdoms, and we can have an army here within a matter of days.”
